


Unbroken

by MiraMeraki



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Episode: s12e10 The Timeless Children, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, episode rewrite, if Chibnall were a shameless thoschei stan, tw for suicidal thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-05
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:08:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23019832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiraMeraki/pseuds/MiraMeraki
Summary: Even when she's at his mercy, the Doctor always knows how to break him.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 230





	1. Chapter 1

He can almost _hear_ her breaking.

Not that there’s much else left to make a sound on this broken planet. Funny how just a few regenerations ago, he would have done anything to break the silence, when the never-ending drumbeat always beat the loudest. But now, with nothing more than the faint hum of the paralysis field and the even fainter sound of the Doctor’s breathing to keep him company, it’s maddening how desperately he clings to the nigh-inaudible rhythm of her hearts, until it’s all he can hear. Anything louder would utterly shatter him. 

The Master grips his head in his hands. Even when she’s at his mercy, the Doctor always knows how to break him.

For a time, longer than he’d ever care to admit, he’s been staring mesmerized at her face. It’s a rare opportunity for him to see the Doctor’s face at peace, and he finds himself unwittingly tracing soft new lines in her skin, ones to superimpose over countless memories of furrowed brows and clenched teeth. 

Of course, he knows that peace is merely an illusion. Inside, her mind is being ravaged by the Matrix; it won’t be long until she buckles under the strain. If he leaves her in there, it’ll break her. Victory at last. After centuries of her insufferable meddling, some well-earned _peace_.

_“And has it calmed all the rage?”_

Well, perhaps peace isn’t the right word. Doesn’t even remember what true peace feels like, if he’s ever felt it at all. But he imagines… he imagines it must feel something like _this_. Just the two of them together like it used to be. Without her pets, her vain sense of goodness, her contempt for everything he’s become. 

As if he doesn’t hate himself, he thinks, a surge of manic energy pushing him to his feet. The miniaturized Lone Cyberman is a heavy weight in his breast pocket, and even now, so close to victory, the temptation to unleash the Death Particle has wormed into his mind and won’t let go. He’s suffered enough, he tells himself at times, when his body is weary and his mind is dark. To die here, with her, is far from the worst fate he can imagine.

He starts pacing around the Matrix Chamber, orbiting the Doctor like he’s done for so much of his life. He can hear a layer of her subconscious mind crying out for help, and it’s such a headrush to know that he is not alone, that they are united in their suffering.

“ _A little piece of you is in me,”_ he growls inside her mind. _“All I am is somehow because of you.”_

To know that she indirectly gave him life, a life that he _hates_ with every fiber of his being, tears at him from the inside, but not quite as much as the prospect of her, an immortal creature with unlimited regenerations, living far after he is dead and gone. He delighted in taking her on a trip down memory lane as they traversed the bombed-out Citadel, but perhaps there would come a time, a future incarnation of the Doctor many cycles down the line, when she wouldn’t remember him at all.

The Master screams to break the silence.

The sound causes the Doctor to stir, craning her neck in a weak struggle against the crackling rings of energy that bind her, and for a moment the Master has the crazed urge to reach through, wrap his hands around her neck, and wring the life from her. To feel the fire of her regeneration energy melt his skin, over and over and over, for as many times as it takes, until the two of them are ash and bone. Mutually assured destruction.

 _But not yet_ , he tells himself in a rare moment of restraint. She’s getting to the good part; he can tell by the frown that passes like a shadow over her face. She’s beautiful, always has been, but fury molds her into something _exquisite._ Perhaps that’s why he can never get enough of hurting her.

But never enough to _break_ her. Not until now.

 _It hurts,_ her subconscious cries out in the back of his mind. _It hurts, it hurts, make it stop. Please, it hurts so much. Help me, Koschei, please._

He sneers at how pathetic she is right now, how it won’t be long before he stands over her lifeless form in triumph as the Timelord Victorious.

_When I arrange for your death, I expect you to stay dead._

And yet, his hearts are madly punching at his insides. She’s _dying_ , he thinks with every beat, growing louder in his head the more he tries to ignore it. Dying, dying, dying, dying. She’s dying, a part of him screams, and taking with her the stars from the heavens and the breath from his lungs.

_The cosmos without the Doctor scarcely bears thinking about._

He doesn’t know if it’s a conscious act or involuntary twitch, but either way, he presses the trigger and watches the paralysis field vanish. The Doctor crumples like a broken doll, and he lunges to catch her before she hits the ground. She is cold and pale but alive, and the Master trembles in relief. 

Maybe his life doesn’t matter to him, but hers does. 

He’s just located a mostly in-tact bedroom when she finally stirs in his arms. “What’re you doing,” she mumbles in a tone the Master assumes is meant to convey annoyance, even as she nestles her head in the crook of his shoulder. 

As he carries her inside and lays her down on red silk sheets covered by a layer of orange dust, she looks up at him dazedly, with a childlike trust that breaks his hearts. “Funny way of killing me,” she whispers, slurring her words as she fights to keep her eyes open. “Why’d you save me?”

The Master smiles wryly, because he genuinely doesn’t know. So instead of giving her an answer, he reaches out and presses two fingers to her temple. 

“Sweet dreams, Theta.”


	2. Chapter 2

She wakes up feeling broken.

“Ugh, could’ve done without a full-blown paralysis field,” she groans, pressing a hand to her temple as the world spins beneath her. It hurts to open her eyes, but thankfully, one of Gallifrey’s suns has already dipped below the horizon, the other one following close behind and leaving deep, soothing purple shadows in its wake.

So deep, in fact, that if she hadn’t immediately felt his unique psychic wavelength, she might have overlooked the Master’s presence entirely. Leaning against the nearest wall, he’s impossible to separate from the darkness surrounding him. His stillness unnerves her, as he scrutinizes her with frightening intensity; with his folded arms and set jaw, it’s like he’s been chiseled out of the wall. 

And yet, there’s also something vulnerable in seeing him without his jacket, currently draped across her torso. His eyes are more bloodshot than before, she notices, and she wonders how long he’s been watching over her while she slept. It makes her want to reach out to him, but she knows that their game isn’t finished yet, and the same question is still burning on her lips: “Why did you save me?”

The Master scoffs as he unfolds his arms and walks languidly toward her. “I’ve just disconnected you from the largest repository of Time Lord knowledge, shown you information that undermines your life and the entire foundation of our race, and _that’s_ what’s on your mind?”

With a small wince, the Doctor sits up, using the cushions so neatly piled around her to support her weight. “Yes, it is, actually,” she says defiantly. “Because I’ll have time to deal with… all _that_ later, but right now, my friends need me. So I’d be very keen to know if you plan on standing in my way.”

When he doesn’t respond, she casts off his coat and gets up, ignoring the spike of pain that stabs at her head. Their eyes meet, and instead of fury or scorn, she sees… hurt? Resignation? She’s about to shrug it off as a trick of the light, but then she sees the shrunken Lone Cyberman in his fist, and an ice-cold chill washes over her.

“Need a keychain for him?” she asks, fighting to keep her tone mild.

The Master scowls. “Oh, so _now_ I’ve got your attention. Don’t worry, I have no interest in detonating the Death Particle around your little pets.”

_Death Particle_ , she thinks. _So that’s what Ashad meant by ‘the death of everything.’_ “So what _are_ you going to do with it?”

“Wasn’t a problem for you a minute ago.” He mockingly gestures towards the door. “Go on then, Doctor. Don’t want to keep your humans waiting. Their lives are ever so short as it is.”

“And leave you on Gallifrey by yourself with an army of Cybermen?” 

“You could destroy all the TARDISes on your way out,” he suggests with a shrug. “Close the Boundary behind you. Not like there’s much organic life left to destroy here.”

She doesn’t buy it. “Except yourself,” she points out.

He raises an eyebrow. “Oh? And tell me, Doctor, why do you suppose I’d ever be so stupidly self-destructive?”

_I know you. Explode those ships, you kill yourself. That's the one thing you can never do._

“Because you’re letting me leave,” she whispers, trying and failing to hide how _terrified_ she is. Not of him, but _for_ him. “Countless centuries of these games, and in all that time, you’ve never let me leave.”

“Never stopped you from leaving anyway,” he snaps, fists shaking at his sides. “And it’s never been a game. Even if it was, it’s over now, isn’t it? Nothing’s the same anymore.”

“If you say it’s over,” she answers simply. “Which again begs the question, what are you going to do now?”

The Doctor warily takes note of the vein throbbing at the Master’s temple. “Contrary to your _suffocating_ ego, my life does not revolve around you, Doctor. You’ve seen the destruction I’ve managed here. If I wanted, I could scorch half a star system by next Thursday, make the last days of the Time War look like a schoolyard brawl. There’s a whole universe out there, Doctor, just waiting to burn.”

The Doctor sighs. “Is it terrible that I wish I believed you would? At least it’d keep you alive.” 

She takes a cautious step forward, like someone approaching a wounded animal. “This isn’t like you,” she insists, softer this time. “I don’t understand. _I’m_ the one with a life-altering hidden past, after all. So why are you acting like this?”

A shudder jolts through his body, and just when she thinks he’s ready to scream, explode, put her in a chokehold, the Master… stops. His whole body sags as the fiery rage in his eyes suddenly goes cold, leaving him strangely empty. Broken. As if that fire had been the only thing keeping him upright, even as it seared away his insides.

He looks at her, and for the first time, it feels like he’s not seeing her at all. She wants to reopen their psychic connection, to understand what’s going on behind those unfathomably dark eyes, but she’s also scared of what she may find. 

“Give it to me,” she demands instead, gesturing to the Lone Cyberman, but she’s not sure he’s even registered her speaking. So she reaches out, and much to her surprise, he opens his palm with zero resistance. 

When the Master finally speaks, he sounds subdued, like the muffled roar of foam on the sand after a crashing tidal wave. “You could’ve been rid of me,” he tells her. “An evil scourge on your happy little universe. And all without a droplet of blood on your hands. Should be a dream come true for you.”

For a moment, she has to forcibly push down the urge to slap him, to slap those words from his lips. “And leave me alone?” she demands. Her voice is on the verge of breaking, but she couldn’t give a damn about showing weakness when both their emotional wounds are already bleeding out. “You’ve already done that too many times. For hundreds of years, I thought I had let you die in my arms, and let me tell you, it was hell. And then you show up again on that plane, and not a _word_ about the Mondas ship. Well, I’m not letting you off that easy, not this time. Because I know what I’m like when I’m the Last of the Time Lords, and I’m not letting it happen ever again. So for gods’ sake, just _tell me what to do to save you._ ”

“I’m not worth saving,” he replies stubbornly.

The Doctor’s eyes are wide and wet with tears. “Oh, so _now_ you care about morality? Is _that_ why you saved me?”

“Not what I meant,” he tells her, and it’s shocking how calm and collected his voice can be despite centuries of madness. “I saved you because everything I am is somehow because of you, so killing you, _actually_ killing you… it would be like killing the one piece of me that’s worth anything.” In anguish, he grabs a fistful of his hair and screws his eyes shut. “You always knew you were special, even at the Academy. It was the one thing I couldn’t stand about you. And now I finally know why. You really are so much _more_ than me.”

She hasn’t witnessed the Master cry in ages, not since Missy. Like then, it’s just a trickle out of one eye, probably doesn’t even notice it himself, but the sight of his tears shakes her to her core. Stowing the Lone Cyberman safely in her coat pocket, she gently takes both his hands in hers and waits for him to open his eyes and look at her. 

“Look at us,” she murmurs. “Both Time Lord experiments, both renegades, both the only two Time Lords to destroy Gallifrey single-handedly. And now we’re the only ones left, again. Can’t you see we’re bound together? I can’t bear it sometimes, to think how similar we are, but I know it’s true. I may not know all of my life, but I know the parts of it that matter, and those are always the parts with you.” 

Her fingers curl a little tighter around his hands, just to make sure he’s still with her. “You’ve always called me a hypocrite,” she continues, a sad little smile creeping onto her face. “And you’re right. I love this universe so much, but even when you destroy it, I could never imagine a universe without you. Never could stand the thought. Killing you would be like killing a part of myself. Not because of that Timeless Child rubbish. Because I need you, Koschei.”

Without breaking eye contact, she lets go of his hands and kneels before him. “Because all that I am is because of _you_.”

She expects him to be pleased, but instead he shakes his head. “No, no, I don’t want that,” he says, and he holds out his hand to her, just like he did at the Boundary. “Stand with me. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

The Doctor’s chest tightens with the memories of her mercy, her _hope_ , and where it landed the two of them in the end. “I think you and I both know now that that can never happen,” she says, her hearts breaking at his expression, so childlike even after all this time. 

Still on her knees, she reaches up and takes his hand anyway. “Lay with me,” she offers instead. “For a little while.” 

The Master perks up, but she can see him trying his best to restrain his hope. “What about your humans?”

“It’s not like I can make it down a corridor like this, let alone to a TARDIS,” she replies, the fatigue from the Matrix washing over her again. “Besides, right now you need me too, Koschei.”

The Master notices her sway, and he quickly kneels down and gathers her in his arms. “Oh, Theta, I’m sorry,” he says as he deposits her back onto the bed before joining her. 

“Don’t apologize,” she reassures him. “After all, it’s not like it’s the first time you’ve broken me.” 

She hasn’t had many opportunities to admire this new body, with its smooth brown skin and glossy black hair, but now, she presses herself close enough to memorize every inch of him. She cups his face in her hands and marvels at how throughout all their regenerations, their bodies always find a way to fit together, in a way their hearts, with their warring desires, so seldom could. 

“And I imagine it won’t be the last,” she adds quietly. But when he pulls her to his chest, like she’s something to be protected, it’s too easy to believe in an eternity of this, of twilight moments that bathe them in a tranquil glow and mask the darkness that dwells inside them both. Like so many of her dreams of peace, it’s a dream that can never last.

“But for now,” she whispers in the space between his beating hearts, “just put me back together.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm not 100% satisfied with this one, but hopefully it's a sufficient ending, and I may go back and rework some of the dialogue after term ends. Since most of my travel plans in the coming weeks are canceled due to the coronavirus, I'm thinking of writing a thoschei multi-chapter fic. It'll be the first multi-chapter I've written in years, but fingers crossed it'll be worth reading. Right now, the best way I can describe it is domestic fluff with political drama. Political fluff? I've no idea if that makes any sense, but if it piques your interest, please follow me and get notified when it goes up!


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